I am very partial to lite-on dvd writers and have used them for at least a decade now in the vast majority of my PC builds. Not only because their build quality is among the best but the price is among the lowest - a company that manages to do both of those right in this day and age is bliss. This particular lite-on drive is no exception: the Lite-on iHAS224-06 burns extremely fast at up to 24X speeds to DVD-R's, DVD+R's, DVD-RW's and DVD+RW's, meaning you can burn a complete DVD-5 disc in under 7 minutes. It also burns to CD-R's and CD-RW's with the same ease and at fast speeds (48X), taking just about a minute and a half to complete a CD burn. This drive also features Lightscribe support which allows for "printing" directly onto the label-side of the disc using just your DVD-writer - no ink or messy labels to worry about! The only caveat is that you need to use Lightscribe-compatible media which do carry a premium over your standard DVD / CD discs.

The burner itself feels very solid. Lite-On does a very good job. I like that there is no branding on the drive; it looks more professional that way. The tray is more rigid and opens and shuts with more strength and precision than other drives I've had. In practice it has been very reliable and it has worked with every brand and type of media I own.

This burner is special in that it comes with LightScribe which is a technology for burning an image onto the top of a CD or DVD. I paid a little more for this burner because I was producing a wedding DVD and wanted the added that added touch (without using a silly label or an expensive printer). While I like the idea, the technology in practice needs work. You will need some proprietary software and a driver (takes a while to initialize) to use the technology; I tried a few of these programs without finding all of the features I wanted. Your options for formatting text will be limited and all included templates will be painfully cheesy. You might be better off saving a few bucks on a cheaper burner without LightScribe.

If you have read my other reviews you can probably tell by now that computers and electronics are my profession and I buy a lot of different electronic/ computer peripherals/ items. And I think that this is one of the best budget drives that are out there. it has speeds of LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM and it supports LightScribe, so if ytou want to burn images on your CDs or DVDs you can with this one, of course you have to have a lightscribeable, if that word even exist, CD or DVD media disk. This drive is sometimes noisy, but nothing out of the normal. It is a very fast and reliable drive. It is very easy to install and works right out of the box. So far i have not had any problems with it at all. It has Buffer Underrun Protection which gives you better quality burns and does not cause you toi have many coasters, DVDs or CDs that go bad while burning.